Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Concord hasn’t had a really cold year since Jimmy Carter was president
At Concord Municipal Airport, the official measuring station for New Hampshire according to the National Weather Service, 2020 was the fifth warmest year by average temperature in 130+ years. Perhaps a more significant point is that we haven't had a top-10 cold year...
Mass. to require all new cars to be electric by 2035
From the Boston Globe story: Massachusetts currently has about 30,000 electric vehicles on the roads, a number which may include hybrid vehicles, officials said. They set the goal of increasing that number to 750,000 by 2035, when all new “light-duty” vehicles, or...
Patents in N.H. through Jan. 3
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Dec. 27 to Jan. 3. *** RegDOX Solutions Assigned Patent for Secure Document Storage System RegDOX Solutions, Nashua, New Hampshire, has been assigned a patent (No. 10,880,309, initially...
Some quirky GraniteGeek moments from 2020
Looking through 2020's posts on GraniteGeek was an exercise in "COVID took over everything" but I managed a few otherwise-overlooked items that had nothing to do with viruses. Here are some that caught my eye: January: It's legal for state employees to modify the...
U.K. approves COVID vaccine being tested in N.H.
The BBC reports that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for use in the United Kingdom (which might not be all that united soon, but that's another story). A clinical trial for this vaccine is being run in New Hampshire. Among the testers is my wife;...
Sensors small enough to ride on a butterfly are changing wildlife biology
Sometimes science advances because of new ideas (this is where I make the obligatory Einstein reference) but sometimes it advances because of new tools. An excellent example of the latter was installed this year in Stoddard. “This opens up the ability to ask new...
What’s preventing a tiny house village from being built? Lots of things
The funky little town of Peterborough (which feels like a university town, but without the university - very odd) has an ongoing kerfuffle over a collection of tiny houses. Safety problems with electrical systems led the town to force people out the week before...
Acadia is the least-bad national park when it comes to invasive plants
A study of invasive plants in national parks found that Acadia in Maine, the northeast's only national park, is the least affected by this global problem - but it's still affected. Invasive plants were found in 50 percent of plots in 39 parks. Ten parks had at least...
N.H. patents through Dec. 27
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Dec. 20 to Dec. 27. *** Parallel Wireless Assigned Patent for Cell ID Disambiguation Parallel Wireless, Nashua, New Hampshire, has been assigned a patent (No. 10,873,884, initially...
Are elves human? Primates? Something else? Epidemiologists need to know
Thanks to timely announcements from Dr. Fauci, we know that Santa Claus is immune from COVID-19. However, an investigation by the GeekWitness News Team has uncovered a shocking fact: This immunity may not extend to his elves! This is significant because Santa is upper...
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Science Cafe NHAbout Granite Geek
Dave Brooks has written a science/tech column since 1991 – yes, that long – and has written this blog since 2006, keeping an eye on topics of geekish interest in and around New Hampshire, from software to sea level rise, population dynamics to printing (3-D, of course). He moderates monthly Science Cafe NH discussions, beer in hand, and discusses the geek world regularly on WKXL radio in Concord.
Brooks earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics but got lost on the way to the Ivory Tower and ended up in a newsroom. He has reported for newspapers from Tennessee to New England. Rummage through his bag of awards you’ll find oddities like three Best Blog prizes from the New Hampshire Press Association and a Writer of the Year award from the N.H. Farm and Forest Bureau, of all places. He joined the Concord Monitor in 2015.